Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1842, BY HENRY WARE, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BL 51 W3 1842 V1 2 cop. 1 CAMBRIDGE PRESS : METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU. AN INQUIRY. CHAPTER I. A REVELATION Needed. We have before seen what is the power, and what the weakness of human reason. We have seen in the popular religions, and in the doctrines of heathen philosophy, how much it has actually achieved, and wherein it has failed. We have seen how little flattering to human vanity are the fairest monuments of its unaided power; how little support there is to the proud pretensions of its all-sufficiency; how little ground for appealing to its decisions from the authority of revelation; and how little reason to forsake the clear instructions of the Apostles and Prophets, for the mere opinions of the wisest of the ancient sages. For how full of absurdity and error has been the religion, not only of barbarians, but of nations the most enlightened and refined; and not only the popular opinions, on the subject of religion, but those of the great masters of human science. How vague and uncertain were their opinions; and how feeble, defective, and false appear to us their reasonings, not merely on |